


Home Is Where You Can Pretend Your Workplace Doesn't Exist

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sparatus hasn't been having a good day (again). Luckily, that's what going home for the weekend is for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where You Can Pretend Your Workplace Doesn't Exist

Ierian Sparatus had absolutely, no doubt about it, hundred-and-thirteen-percent certain, _not_ had a good day. There was exactly one reason he hoped he’d retire before the Systems Alliance got a Council seat, and its name was Donnel Udina. He was already hard enough to be civil to as a mere _ambassador_ ; he’d be downright _insufferable_ if he got the council seat, as chain of command would dictate he would if the humans decided to follow it.

He’d been particularly awful today, whining incessantly about what _he_ claimed was the Council treating humanity as second-class citizens and _literally every other species_ called following the whole “interspecies cooperation” doctrine and not playing favorites. And, if Valern’s reports were accurate, a good number of humans agreed with him. What an annoyingly arrogant and self-centered species.

As if just Udina wasn’t enough, Shepard had finished a mission on Noveria and let rachni lose. _Rachni!_ And not just some soldier, no, of course not, the _queen_. And when he’d pointed out what a colossally bad and poorly-thought-out idea this was, Shepard had had the _nerve_ to brush him off, like the word of a being that was trapped and facing death could be trusted. Trapped prey would try _anything_ to free itself, any self-respecting hunter would have known _that_. Damn bleeding-heart aliens never taught their young to understand their quarry and how any frightened mind worked; they were going to wind up with another plague of rachni, and when they did, he was going to find Shepard and gently choke them to death.

He growled to himself and shook his head as he keyed in the passcode to his apartment, clacking his mandibles in frustration. Thank the spirits it was the weekend and he wouldn’t have to deal with Udina _or_ Shepard for another couple days.

He walked into the apartment and reached up to undo the clasp on his cloak, then paused as a familiar scent flooded his nose. He glanced around, slowly pulling the cloak off and hanging it up. “Teia?”

His wife’s head popped up on the other side of the couch, then the upper half of her torso as she pulled herself up to lean over the backside. “Hey, babe,” she said, folding her arms so her elbows dangled off the edge of the couch and resting her head on her hands. “How’s life?”

He fluttered his mandibles and walked over, pulling his bag off his shoulder and dropping it in an empty chair. “You’re home early.”

“Mm. Didn’t feel the best, so I turned in my stuff early and came home. Getting interns sick is frowned upon.” She let one mandible fall to the side. “You want some tea? I accidentally made more than planned, it should be done soon.”

He frowned slightly and ran a hand along her neck, checking for fever. “How sick do you feel? Did you take anything for it?”

She leaned into his hand with a pleased little hum. “That doesn’t answer my question, but yes, I did. Couple things for fever and congestion, started feeling better maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

He sighed. “Yes, I’ll take tea, thank you, dear. You’re sure you’re feeling better?”

One mandible tapped against Aediteia’s jaw plates. “Positive, Ierian. And you still haven’t told me how your day went.”

“Awful. I’m more concerned about you.”

“Don’t be.” She pulled away from his hand and flopped back down on the couch, stretching out with a yawn. “I’m fine. Come lie down with me, we’ll watch a vid, and you can tell me all about whatever that mean, nasty Udina did this time.”

She flared her mandibles out and gave an amused subvocal thrum, and he groaned. “Patronizing tones aren’t exactly encouraging, you know,” he complained, though he started to walk around the couch anyway.

Aediteia just chuckled and moved to make room for him, reaching up when he got close so she could tug him down by the cowl and press her nasal plates to the ridge next to his eye, carefully avoiding the craggy scar on that side of his face.

He hummed softly, then turned his head to press their brow plates together and reach forward with his mandibles for a gentle kiss. “If I get sick because of you and your need for physical contact, _you_ can be the one to tell my mother.”

“Oh, hush, you big baby,” she teased, pushing herself up to get off the couch as, off in the kitchen, the kettle started to shriek. “You’ll be fine. I’m not sick enough to require a call to Dr. Mother-in-law.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded, taking a seat in his usual spot and making himself comfortable. “But you should still go to bed early. Get some rest.”

She grumbled good-naturedly as she vanished into the kitchen, and Ierian let out a quiet little sigh as he rested his head against the back of the couch. He could already feel the stress of the day ebbing away. Aediteia had that effect on him, he’d noticed in the forty-seven years he’d known her. She just made everything bad feel less significant, purely by being in the room and paying attention to him.

Spirits, _forty-seven years_.

Aediteia came back carefully carrying two cups of tea. “You look like you just realized you forgot your reading glasses at the Tower,” she said with an amused subvocal. Then she paused, then dropped her mandibles slightly. “You didn’t, did you?”

He shook his head and accepted his tea from her, waiting until she’d settled in next to him before hugging her to his side and nuzzling the top of her head. “We’ve been together for forty-seven years, did you know that?”

She grunted into her tea. “When I stop to remember, yes. Why?”

“No reason. It just hit me.”

“Mm.” She took a drink, then stretched to nuzzle his keelbone. “And our forty-fifth anniversary is in three years.” She headbutted him gently. “You better not forget _that_ one.”

“I won’t, I won’t. Promise.”

“Good.” She yawned again, then tucked her head where his cowl met his shoulder and said, “Now drink your tea and tell me all about your day.”

He took a moment to look her over, admiring the way the soft lighting turned his markings on her face just a little more yellow than they were, the way her eyes were half-lidded but attentive, the delicate curve of her mandibles, the adorable little way her toe-claws curled as she took another drink of her tea, and then he did just as she asked, like he always did.

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly just dumb fluff to get back into practice writing these two, because I want to write and post more with them, but it's been ages since I wrote either one.


End file.
